


「Light: Tokyo Edition; 光：東京篇」

by yuren



Series: Study on Light [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, F/M, Insomnia, Medication, Unrequited Love, Warm beer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26339326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuren/pseuds/yuren
Summary: You found fool’s paradise in Tokyo’s starry nights.
Relationships: Oikawa Tooru/Reader
Series: Study on Light [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917541
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	「Light: Tokyo Edition; 光：東京篇」

Stars shone brightest between twelve and two. After that, they’d slowly turn off one by one, two by two, then ten by ten, like millions of supernovas reaching the last grain of their hourglass’s sand. 

But stars did not go off with heart-thumping bursts. No, the stars of Tokyo turned off in slow and long exhales, as if weaved together, they’d collectively coddle and lull wanderers back and into bed in a symphony of saccharine lullabies. And when the clock struck a quarter to three, you, a stubborn inhabitant of this sprawling metropolis, would still be embraced by the infinitesimal glow of the city night. For regardless of its inhabitants or their quirks, Tokyo was gracious and sagacious to all who claimed it home, always providing just enough to coax its timid stragglers and wayward children home.

You followed Tokyo’s will-o'-wisps to your living room’s edge. They have served as your beacon from the first night you stepped foot in this city. They welcomed all of you: you, flitting through social hours at Ginza’s glitziest bars; you, mulling over your circumstances in a backstreet izakaya; and you, looking out at the expanse before you, cheap, warm beer as clinical company. The stars stood by you as you were kept awake by everything and nothing, mind scrambling for a piece of calm in this churning, turbulent sea while simultaneously shrinking at the prospects of static, open waters. 

Tonight, you prayed upon the city lights for peace. You prayed for them, him, her — any being, really — to take your rampant thoughts and plunge them into the deepest waters with all the mercy they could spare. But more than anything, you wished for someone to chuck your ringing phone out the window and let all thirty-six stories of the city drown its existence whole. Though tonight, you could find no harbour for your calamitous mind.

“Oh, thank god! You finally picked up!”

You tipped back the last sips of the lukewarm beer before stooping to line up the can by the window sill, completing yet another neat row. For a long fleeting moment, you felt yourself warm up at his voice of sunshine and balmy days. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I woke you, didn’t I? I’ll call back in the morning.”

You pushed your hair out of your pallid face.

“It’s fine. I wasn’t sleeping anyways.”

There was a playful sigh from the other end. 

“Y/n-chan, have you been seeing your doctor?”

You gave a small grunt of sorts. 

“Okay, good, that’s progress! What about the meds? Have you been taking them regularly?”

You laid back on the floor, looking up at the soft, refractory glow of the white ceiling.

Again, you made some vague noise of affirmation.

“Yet, you’re still awake.”

“I’ve stopped for a few days. They weren’t working well. I scheduled an appointment for tomorrow.”

In this day and time, you weren’t the only insomniac, you wanted to retort. Tokyo never slept, you wanted to say. The two of you used to not sleep either, you wanted to remind him. You wanted to remind him of the stars — the real stars back in your real home — that the two of you promised to count together. But you’ve long resigned to holding your peace. So, you pulled in the frayed lifeline you have been clinging on to, and gripped the phone a bit tighter. 

“Y/n-chan, keep up the doctor’s visits and self monitoring! You’re doing a great job by going at it for so long!”

You turned your head to seek out the will-o'-wisps again, like a weary ship scrounging for a beacon in a storm.

“I’ll come by next month when we’re back in town.”

“Already?”

“What do you mean ‘already?’ You’re always so cold to me, Y/n-chan! There’s only a month left of the champions here, and then we go on break!” 

As you found your faint cluster of stars in some building across the city, your thoughts wandered to Buenos Aires and what its artificial night sky would look like.

“Plus, I already have the ring, and I want to do it back home. But don’t tell anyone! The press—“

Your phantasmal sojourn in Buenos Aires came to an abrupt stop. You turned back homewards. Something was happening to Tokyo’s lights.

“—dessert, and it’ll be so romantic! Hey, Y/n-chan, do you think you can help me distract her that day?”

You thought you had managed to force out a vague semblance of a “yes”, but you couldn’t be sure, not when the lights were becoming more and more hazy, drifting farther and farther away, and you were the captain struggling to steer your ship closer to the lighthouse’s oasis. 

“Y/n-chan, you’re the best! It’ll be so perfect too because she really likes you, and had so much fun with you last time! Wow, I’m pretty nervous but really, really happy, you know? Can you believe—”

“Hey, Tooru.” You stopped the rambling of thoughts. “I’m sorry, but I’m kind of tired.”

There was a brief pause before raucous laughter rang out from the other line. 

“Oh my gosh, that’s great, Y/n-chan! I guess I should talk your ear off more often, huh?” 

There was more of that radiant sound from his end.

“Don’t worry, Y/n-chan, once we’re back, you and I will be together again like the old days, and things will get even better!”

You closed your eyes to Tokyo’s lights.

“Yeah, Tooru, it’ll be perfect.”

“Okay, you do sound pretty tired. I’ll let you go now. Love you, and take care!”

“Yeah, you too, Tooru.”

The phone dropped from your hand as you laid in the dark on your living room floor.

Once upon a time, in the period between twelve and two, the stars had shone the brightest. Those stars didn’t turn off nor did they answer to the metropolises of mankind. And once upon a time, the stars had merely been spectators to your sunlit nights. They had been witnesses to the heart-thumping bursts that had warmed the small universe of your heart each time the grass dipped beside you on your many sleepless nights. 

When you turned back to the Tokyo outside your window, the cityscape had exploded with a myriad of misty, dotted lights. 

The microcosm of Tokyo around you was a cheap, cold imitation of your universe with Tooru on those starlit Miyagi nights. 

And it was laughable, you thought, that people would ever think to leave behind real stars for artificial ones, that you would ever leave behind your home to chase a fool’s paradise. 

This was Tokyo, a city of fourteen million people. You claimed this anonymous city home. And with the whole of your city before you, you could only seek comfort in its artificial stars. 

Yet, for some reason, at three am, Tokyo’s stars never looked so bright. 


End file.
